This news article was withdrawn on 12 October 2017

Statistics released by Highways England show that its officers dealt with 4,281 incidents between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day to provide help to drivers – an average of 1 every 3 minutes.

Incidents attended by traffic officers included a wardrobe falling from a car on the M62 near Leeds on Christmas Eve, a large pothole caused by flooding on the M62 near Rochdale on Boxing Day, and a lorry fire on the M1 near Newport Pagnell on New Year’s Eve.

Around 2 in every 5 incidents (1,721) were caused by vehicles breaking down and just over 1 in 10 (604) were caused by collisions. There were also 78 abandoned vehicles, 55 flooding issues and 21 fires.

Christmas Day was the quietest day with 278 incidents, followed by 392 on New Year’s Day. Wednesday 30 December was the busiest with 591 incidents, followed by 562 on Christmas Eve and 527 on Bank Holiday Monday.

The South East was the busiest region with 1,094 incidents compared to 324 in the East Midlands, making it the quietest region over the 9 days.

Our traffic officers do a fantastic job of keeping the motorways moving 24 hours a day and Christmas was no exception. We dealt with nearly 300 incidents on Christmas Day itself and an average of 1 incident every 3 minutes during the 9 days between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day.

Around 40 percent of the incidents we dealt with were caused by vehicles breaking down so it shows how important it is that people make sure their vehicles are in a good condition and have enough fuel before setting off.

We’d also encourage drivers to check their journeys before heading out to find out about any ongoing incidents and plan an alternative route if they need to.

Highways England’s traffic officers manage incidents by working with the emergency services, managing traffic to reduce congestion, clearing debris from the carriageways, and re-opening routes as soon as it is safe to do so.

Under the Traffic Management Act 2004, traffic officers have the power to stop and direct traffic, close lanes and carriageways and manage traffic. Failure to obey directions from a traffic officer is an offence and carries a fine of up to £1,000 along with a possible driving licence endorsement or disqualification.

To check real-time traffic information before setting off, drivers can visit our website or download the Highways England app. Live traffic information is also available on Highways England’s Twitter feeds which is listed on our website.

Help us improve GOV.UK

Help us improve GOV.UK

To help us improve GOV.UK, we’d like to know more about your visit today. We’ll send you a link to a feedback form. It will take only 2 minutes to fill in. Don’t worry we won’t send you spam or share your email address with anyone.